BETTORS SKIRT RULE, SEND U.S. AND CASH TO CLEANERS

Drug traffickers may be circumventing a new federal regulation aimed at stopping the laundering of millions of dollars in illegal profits at this city`s 10 boardwalk casinos.

The disclosure by one of the state`s top gaming enforcement officials comes a month after the rule went into effect requiring casino cash transactions of $10,000 or more to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service.

So far, the requirement has produced 857 reports. That breaks down to about 85 for each casino during the 25 days from May 7 to May 31, or slightly more than three a day.

The rule is intended to prevent laundering, the process of channeling illegally earned money through a legitimate business to disguise its origins. Gaming officials believe drug traffickers are getting around the rule by converting small amounts in many separate transactions, a process called

''smurfing.''

''We have been told that some casino employees have been advising gamblers to keep their transactions under $10,000 or break them up among relatives to stay under the reporting rule,'' said Thomas O`Brien, director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.

But O`Brien said it may take several months before the division can assess the full impact of the federal regulation.

O`Brien`s investigators also have been examining possible employee collusion in the casino laundering of more than $4.3 million in 1982 by a New York-Sicily heroin ring. Nine members of the operation were indicted last month by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn, N.Y. So far, no casino executives have been implicated in the money-laundering scheme, and no casino employees have been indicted.

O`Brien, who had agents working undercover at casinos until early this year, said he believes the new regulation and several federal indictments may have prompted the cash cleaners to devise new methods.

Instead of depositing hundreds of thousands of dollars with casino cashiers and attracting the attention of state gaming agents, the drug czars may have recruited dozens of people to launder smaller amounts of cash.

''There would be no problem for two or three people to launder as much as $100,000 a day through the casinos here,'' O`Brien said. ''Each could come into the casino carrying $20,000 in drug money cash and play the table games

(blackjack, craps, roulette or baccarat).

''They could convert $500 or $1,000 to chips at the tables, gamble a little, maybe even lose some, then cash in the rest of the chips for clean money.''

O`Brien concedes that it may take longer to convert the cash that way, but the same purpose is accomplished. Investigators have been alerted to watch for such patterns of play at the gaming tables, but the heavy weekend casino crowds often make such surveillance difficult, state agents say.

Statistics from February alone show that gamblers bet $450 million at the 1,040 gaming tables here. Of that amount, the casinos won more than $75 million, or an average of 12.7 percent of the amount wagered.

The Brooklyn indictments charged that more than $4.3 million was laundered during an eight-month period in 1982 by New York lawyer Anthony Castelbuono. The money was deposited in four casinos in small denominations, changed later for larger bills, then shipped to Swiss bank accounts by way of Bermuda and Canada, according to the indictment.

O`Brien said Castelbuono was considered a high roller by the casinos and was treated accordingly, with free rooms, food and gifts. During one gambling spree at the Golden Nugget, Castelbuono, a Harvard law school graduate, was reported to have lost $700,000. Earlier, Castelbuono had deposited $1,187,450 in cash with the casino cashier.